While I don't hate freedom usually, I do appreciate the iPhone for utter reliability of the device. It works. The platform is constraining though with limited choice in the configuration, types of applications, and other general things that us open source folks tend to want to do with our devices.

Lately, I had the chance to spend a day (before you take me to task, read on a bit) with an Android device. The device isn't top of the line, it was Moto 5G Stylus. It's a nice phone with a large battery, a nice screen, a stylus, and a little customized version of Android 12. The device is what I would call performant enough. Apps start quick enough for my uses.

While the experience was different, it wasn't awful just not iOS and that's a good thing. I liked the layout of things, the notifications just seem better allow you to easily push through the the application that created the notification. The notifications are stacked up nicer in Android. Overall the Android OS is nice to use. Unfortunately the OS is just a platform for applications...

Where I found Android problematic is in the apps from the Google Play store. It just seems like the quality of apps between iOS and Android is vastly different, even from the same developer. I like weather apps, but my go to app for weather is from Environment Canada. The app is available on both platforms but the quality of the app is less on Android in comparison to iOS. Graphics are disorted, images are blurry, fonts are jagged. Undetered, I tried other apps like Microsoft Teams, Coros (my running watch), and Tracpac (accessing my local libary); all were just inferior to their iOS cousins. I don't see this in the Google apps that I have on both platforms so I'm left wondering if this is simply that vendors other Google don't care as much about quality.

It's a real shame that leaves one thinking that the iOS experience is premium while the Android experience is second rate. I want to like and use Android actually. I like the idea of using a more open device that I can configure as I want and not what has been curated for me.